You seem to have made a lot of assertions here, Bruce. Combined with some sound and fury.

"There is no limit to the vaulting ambitions for power and influence of the 'ruling-elite' that presently reside at the 'Civic Center'."

##### Who are you saying are the 'ruling elite'? All the councillors? All the council officers? The councillors and senior council officers? Cabinet members and senior council officers? Everyone there? And why 'no limit'? Do you mean they will stop at nothing?

Some who have 'parachuted' into high positions from other authorities, very often without those positions even being offered to people from South Ribble, check on the 'hiring-policy' of south Ribble, and see what salaries are being offered.

##### Information would be very interesting to see.

One only has to look back a couple of years, to the machinations of the then 'Labour/Liberal' coalition with the 'Rulers' of South Ribble. To see the extent of their duplicity. As they attempted to 'join-Leyland/south Ribble' onto Preston's power and tax structure.

#### I thought that the Labour/Liberal coalition had made it patently clear that they were in favour (for whatever reasons) of a unitary authority covering Preston and South Ribble, which would be responsible for all the services currently provided by the district and county council. Where is the duplicity?

The fact that the majority of south-Ribble taxpayers, would have paid more of their council tax to Prestons Urban economy, was seemingly irrelavant to the elite who, with their high salaries and pension benifits, would have gained even more of the same from the merger.

##### I'm not sure what your argument is here. The council tax would have been collected by a unitary authority and spent wherever the unitary authority decided to spend it. Are you saying that a unitary authority would inevitably have favoured Preston? Undoubtedly there would have been winners among council employees but some would also have lost their jobs. That includes some of the most senior staff. So some who would have preferred to continue working would have been made redundant.

I think I've taken issue with enough of what you've said now, so let me just add that I have to agree with Noel. There does seem to be pay inflation among senior officer and I find it very difficult to justify a 200k salary for a chief executive of a county council.

Lancashire County Council had been primed to buy the site in West Paddock, Leyland, for a new Area South base.

But landowners South Ribble Council have put the land back on the open market after County Hall pulled out.

Coun Colin Clark, South Ribble's deputy leader, said: "We are disappointed that Lancashire County Council appears to have drawn a line under its plans for new offices on West Paddock.

"However, we are in negotiations with the county council, which is now looking to secure office accommodation in the civic centre, which would bring in rental income for South Ribble Council and additional business for the local economy."

No Frank you're quite right. Cllr. Clark clearly didn't have the benefit of Daddy Bull. This type of thing really annoys me, as do football managers when they say " we want to come away from ( insert team here) with a result. All games have a result so what the heck are they talking about? They also use incorrect verb tenses, all of them, saying things like " he's gone past the full back, and he's shot straight at the goalkeeper"
Rather than "he went past.....and shot....
Maybe I'm pedantic but it does annoy me.